


Congrats on Your Loss, DLM

by Vukovich



Series: Epitaphs in Autographs [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Allegory, Death from Old Age, Dubious Morality, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Infidelity, M/M, Sad Ending, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29617797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vukovich/pseuds/Vukovich
Summary: Part 2.  ReadPart 1.  This might hurt.It takes Potter amillenniumto stop shoving and start unzipping, but it takes him 72 seconds to hold on to Ginny's tombstone for dear life while Draco's mouth fucks him."What the FUCK was that, Malfoy?""If she didn't ruin you for women, I bloody will, Potter."
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Epitaphs in Autographs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176113
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23
Collections: My Bloody Valentine 2021





	Congrats on Your Loss, DLM

**Author's Note:**

> Props to [Prima](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primaveracerezos/pseuds/primaveracerezos) for... alpha reading? Joining me in this handbasket? Just generally reassuring me "No, you can say that on the internet."

|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Draco has the bartender between his tonsils, waiting for a shot to slide down his throat. His left kneecap is numb, because he's been on it for 578 years, but it's still preferable to being on both knees. One knee is for victory and conquest and the receiving of honors. One knee is for winners.

One knee is for a hasty retreat. One knee is for a lunge back and a quick escape. Two knees is for supplication and worship.

Two knees is for worship and reverence and defeat. Two knees is for taking a fucking beating.

Men come in and shuffle up to the urinals on the other side of the stall wall.

"Yeah, bloody broke her neck in the last Harpies match."

"Shit, I'm gonna lose fifty Galleons on next week's match, then."

"Reckon so. Best Seeker in the League."

The man in his mouth swears under his breath, and Draco fights for his.

Somewhere, in a neverwhere hidden corner of his mind, an eons-old forest rustles to life in a shuddering release of dry leaves and cracked, splintered bark.

<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It's been 53 nanoseconds since he's seen Harry Potter, but then there he fucking is, just walking up to the rectangle of fresh-turned earth. It's been 3,421 years since anybody's accepted a gift from Draco. Not since before the war, at least, and it's been all borrowed time since then, and borrowed time runs amok.

Borrowed time runs in fits and jerks like a fox outmaneuvering hounds, so between when he puts the plastic fern on the grave and when Potter picks it up is anywhere between 34 seconds and 34 years. But in that immeasurable space, Draco has only made it the short distance to the gravel path a few meters away.

Faintly, he hears the rustle of paper, and an envelope shredding open. Not tearing neatly along a crease, but being gutted for the tender morsels within.

"The FUCK?!"

Draco glances back over his shoulder, and Potter's staring at him, as if by sheer force of will, he can make Draco turn around and walk back. And it turns out he's right.

"What the FUCK, Malfoy?!"

Potter's holding the note like it's made of shit and spun gold. 

A little coil of something interesting at the base of his spine. Like the ache of healed bones and a dropping barometer. A good ache he hasn't felt in a while. A little curl like a pinkie finger beckoning. _Tch tch, come along, now._

"What the FUCK is this supposed to mean, you goddamn degenerate?!"

It takes Potter a _millennium_ to stop shoving and start unzipping, but it takes him 72 seconds to hold on to her tombstone for dear life while Draco's mouth fucks him. It only took Draco 21 hours to fumble his own cock out and paint streaks on the soft, brown earth between his knees.

This one's appropriate, he thinks, to be on two knees, because Potter's paying homage to every blessed and damned deity of mankind's invention above him as he grips the granite.

Draco waters the earth, and Potter crackles as he crumbles, hitches, and damns the world to hell.

"What the FUCK was that, Malfoy?"

"If she didn't ruin you for women, I bloody will, Potter."

He's alone on his knees in the dirt, a tinder-dry tree-line staring down a storm front, rain wafting on the air in a promise while sparks crackle at the peak of the thunderhead.

_You could save me.  
I COULD MAKE YOU BURN.  
You could put the fire out.  
OR NOT.  
Then do it, mother fucker. Do it and watch me fucking burn.  
I MIGHT.  
Slay me or slake me, but don't leave me parched._

<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It's been a decade or two since Draco came, but the man's made no motion to part yet.

"What's your wand?" 

"My what?"

"Your wand." Draco takes a long pull off the cigarette the man hands him. "What is it?"

"Oh. Applewood and Troll whisker. Nine inches. Why?"

"Just curious." He hands the cigarette back. Applewood and Troll whisker. Ambition and strength, and maybe lacking in character. The bench seat in the back of the car squeaks as the man sits up and opens the door. An engine shop that specializes in retrofitting cars with magical engines. Ambitious and lacking in character.

It's been 21 weeks since the storm started ripping through the house, and 30 seconds since the last time this happened, and it'll probably only be 4 days till it happens again. But the kitchen isn't a forest, it's an ocean, and saltwater can take an electrical load like nobody's business.

All the same, the forest hears the sea shatter and prepares for the hurricane to make landfall.

Just like last time, he takes his wand, his sentinel tree, his lightning rod, and slips it under his pillow while the storm passes him by and scorches the neighboring valley with a shrapnel hail of pottery.

<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dawn broke 57 hours ago, and Draco's still sitting on the edge of Harry's bed looking at the nightstand. Unicorn hair glitters in the morning light, not unlike spilled unicorn blood on a forest floor. Both of them exposed when they shouldn't be.

His sentinel tree, his lightning rod, his wand had been felled in the storm, and what was a forest without a tall tree to draw the wrath of the sky?

Vulnerable. 

It had always been a risk, to hold tight to a beacon while the electricity crackled in the air. And really, it was the best way to draw a hit. After all, holding a lightning rod with his feet in the water had gotten him struck before, and the forest floor still bore the furrows of the blows.

<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The man is at least 3 weeks and 18 days late meeting Draco in front of the Gringotts lobby Floo.

"Hey." Lime green robes and dittany. 

He looks as nervous as Draco is shocked. "You're a fucking _Healer_?"

"Yeah."

"Didn't think Healers, in particular, picked up war criminals in bars."

"Half the appeal, actually."

"Into Death Eaters, huh?"

"No. Into men Mungo's won't treat. Less drama."

For 8 years, Draco forgets every platitude about benevolent Healers' hands, because this man's grip is deathly delight and his fingers spool what's left of Draco's soul like candy floss.

"Christ, Malfoy, are you going to come or what?"

Respirations like reparations, and he's almost back on earth.

"You want me to?"

"This isn't a fucking prostate exam."

"Fuck me."

Draco's cock has been drooling down itself for centuries, but the Healer's fully-clothed and not even hard yet. But Death Eater hands aren't unskilled, so he shoves one down the Healer's trousers. Silicone glides down the back of his hand and slick hair along his palm.

The Healer pulls his shirt off and smirks as Draco's eyes trace the scars.

"Couldn't heal _those_ , huh? Mine are better."

"Whatever. Cocks are in the nightstand. You pick."

Nightstands are where lightning rods go to die, but not this time.

"You _would_ pick that one, Malfoy."

The trim of the headboard bites into his hands as his teeth bite his lip to bleeding, and the Healer just. keeps. going. Healers won't treat Death Eaters, but they'll make a mother fucking meal of them.

"Bloody hell, Malfoy. Just come already."

He comes a second time, but lets the Healer keep going till he comes dry, hand tacky around his cock.

"Do you want me to..."

"Not really."

The ceiling is swimming, whirls in the stucco texture spinning into clouds and back out. The Healer's looking at his scars as they both come down, not touching.

"Ironic, right?" Draco huffs a bitter laugh at the ceiling sky.

"You can go."

"Yeah. What's your wand?"

A corner of the Healer's lip curls in soft disdain as he sits up against the headboard. "Redwood and dittany. Fourteen inches. Custom order from the States."

Draco chokes out a wry chuckle as he slides into his clothes. Of course he'd have a massive, eternal tree and a wand like a forearm.

A human sentinel that draws lightning on behalf of fucking humanity itself. A goddamn walking lightning rod of professional austerity. A Sentinel Healer.

"Take the Floo. I don't need the neighbors seeing you."

"Merlin forfend."

"You shouldn't be allowed to use his name."

Harry's asleep when he slips into the bed, the faint breeze of his breath ebbing and flowing. A warm arm wraps around his waist as he settles in, soft lips between his shoulder blades. Deceptive, that gentle movement of air.

Respirations like reparations. Calm between storms. 

<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

He's been standing in this lunge with a sword raised for 50 fucking years, and this is not the night he had planned.

"Almost done with the outline. Honest."

"I did not think you meant a literal sword, you know."

"Oh. Gods. No. You? No."

At least the man had gotten him spectacularly high, but now that had faded, and he was just naked on a low stage, holding a sword, and bored, bored, bored.

"What's your wand?"

"Huh?"

"Your wand. What is it? If you're not going to fuck me, at least entertain me."

"Oh. Uhm. Sycamore and unicorn hair. Ten inches."

Sycamore. Adventure and novelty and inspiration, and in good amount.

"I'll stand here for another hour if you've got another spliff."

Draco lingers at the bottom of the staircase for a few days, eying the lit upstairs hallway warily. It's early. Harry's still awake. The hall smells like rain, and he undresses in offering to the sky gods.

"Home early," Harry mutters, looking up from his book. He sets the note in it as a bookmark. _His_ note from the plastic fern that now lives next to the living room window, like it gives half a fuck about natural light. The note is a leaf the storm picked up on an updraft and refuses to relinquish.

"Boring," Draco murmurs, fingers tapping his thighs as he weighs making a request of the thunderhead. Storms are wont to give what and when they choose, and have little reason to entreat anyone.

"I'm boring."

"You're . . . _home_."

Fingers try to comb through his hair, but stick on splatters of paint. Fingers trail down him with electric heat that goes straight to his cock. Fingers like whipping funnel clouds spun off from a tornado, power seeking release.

"Fuck me."

"Yeah."

Harry comes like he always does, in 87 nanoseconds and a mother fucking hurricane. Draco comes against the sheets in a silent exhale.

The sky pinks bright in the dawn. A beautiful sunrise, as usually follows a good downpour. The window on Harry's side of the bed casts golden light behind him, wild hair lit like a dandelion on fire. Draco's note sticks out of the top of Harry's book, marking his page like always.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Stay home tonight?"

"Maybe."

<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It's been more than 17 minutes since the war ended, but this man doesn't give a _fuck_. Draco’s lying on the pavement as flaming embers blow in from a prairie fire. It’s borrowed ignition, but the undergrowth catches fire all the same. 

The door slams and Draco looks around the sidewalk for witnesses, but he's not sure if it's to hide his shame or beg for help. Blood runs down his arm to pool in a crack in the cement, coating the leaves of small plants. A blood offering to ambitious little seedlings.

He's trying to wash up in the sink when thunder rolls into the dark kitchen behind him. There are no fucking dishes left to break, unless bone china really is made of bone, in which case, there's a nearly-perfect set of it.

"I told you to stay home. I fucking _told_ you it wasn't safe."

"Nothing's safe."

The blood comes off, but the cuts are still there, and every movement of his thumb shoots pain up to his shoulder. He turns, cradling the wrist, and Harry is _there_ , blown in on the wind.

"I think I-"

Thick fingers wrap around the wrist, and his vision whites out. His knees hit the floor before he knows he's falling. Two knees, all defeat. Pain lances up his thighs from the impact. Harry's grip tightens, and Draco feels something snap before he tastes vomit and sees stars.

Sparking green constellations watch him with unfathomable impunity, no joy or remorse in their inflictions.

"I _told_ you."

"I think I," Draco swallows bile and pride. "I think I need to go to Mungo's."

"You know they won't let you past the lobby."

He can't breathe through the pain, but his mind is growing back around it. "Right."

What they say about lightning never striking the same place twice? It's a lie. A bold-faced lie. Lightning _adores_ pock-marking the ever-loving fuck out of its favorite targets. Lightning will hit the same sentinel tree over and over until the tree becomes invincible or smolders underground till even the roots are ash.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It's _today's_ Daily Prophet, but the story is already centuries old, and they've both been screaming for 38 years, and he's only been crying for a minute, and Harry's not denying anything, so maybe that's at least a start.

"You can't be an Auror with a fucking Dark Mark, Harry! What the fuck were you thinking!? And what the bloody hell is on my back?!"

The wind blows the door shut as he leaves in a gale of red robes and misplaced affection.

It's been 80 months since he left for work, but the dishes in the sink suggest it's been a few days. But he hasn't eaten or cooked much, so maybe the dishes aren't a good clock. Eight unread Daily Prophets sit on the front steps.

It's been a lifetime, but the grass has grown in over her grave, and there's no fresh plot next to it. His knee prints are faintly visible under the new green thatch, and he resists the urge to fit himself into them again.

Harry's spare Auror robes are too big and too short, and itch like fiberglass insulation against his neck, but they do the job. The alert sounds when he crosses the Mungo's lobby, and he whips around to glare at a disheveled wizard, then grins when the enormous security guards haul the man away.

The Auror Ward is too quiet, and everybody moves at quarter-speed. 

"Who are you here to see?" A MediWitch with a clipboard blocks his way.

"Harry Potter."

She frowns, rather than shakes her head. He _is_ here, then. And he's _been_ here for days. The tattoo between his shoulder blades itches like a son of a bitch.

"Family or departmental visit?"

"I..."

Men in red robes look at him, then snap back in recognition. He unbuttons the robe and drapes it over an arm, uninjured hand twisting behind him to scratch his back.

A cluster of ginger mother fuckers sit in a corner of the hall, bored and scared, and inappropriately proud that they’re sitting this vigil. They look at him, then snap back in recognition.

Men in black security robes drift up on either side of him.

Terror-fire burns through his chest. The forest doesn't simply wait for the storm. Not always. The forest can lean. It can slowly, ever-so-slowly, migrate to the path the storm prefers. It can send seeds into the wind to find the rain.

"What is your relationship to the patient?"

 _Love him, hate him, hate him for loving him,_ he thinks.

The Aurors and Weasleys march toward him; murder, revenge, and pain offered up in eager snarls.

"We're-" The red hair and red robes form a wall around and in front of him. 

"We're-" Thick arms slide under his armpits from behind, and the guards tilt his shoulders back.

Harry's in here somewhere, trapped behind this fireline, and the guards arch him back, taking him up on tiptoes.

The MediWitch is flustered by the mob and the wands and the rising tide of testosterone and panic sweat.

Forests are gentle till they're absolutely fucking not, and where the sky is indiscriminate in its violence, the forest is absolutely fucking _not_. The forest is a hunter. The forest is acute; its aim deadly and searing. The wrath of the forest is teeth and claws and venom and candy-sweet poison.

"What is your relationship to the patient?"

It's a beckoning howl to kill before it's words.

"EMOTIONAL SUPPORT HOLE, YOU CUNT."

His foot snaps out as the guards lift him, and he punts the clipboard out of her hands and screams, wordless and crackling with unhinged power. One of the Aurors takes the opportunity for a fist to his gut, but he didn't need air, anyway, and his knee connects with the Auror's face in a satisfying crunch. 

A guard wrenches his broken wrist behind his back, and his knees give out under the body-long sear of it. Another guard grabs him by the collar, and the popping shirtfront buttons slow his descent as he cascades down in a manic marionette fall.

His mouth hits the floor, blood blooming in his teeth on impact, and he waits for boots to rain down on his exposed shoulders. Instead, they all still, and the shoes around his head shuffle nervously.

"What the fuck..." a Weasley whispers.

"Oi! The lot of you! Out of my ward!"

The Sentinel Healer. The human lightning rod. Heat sink in man-form.

A gob of spit lands between his shoulder blades, and they disperse, leaving him with the Redwood.

"Huh. New ink, Malfoy?" The shoes pivot. "Well, follow me. I'll release him with you."

The thing about storm gods; Zeus, Perun, Set, Jupiter and Summanus, Ba’al, Ukko, Thor, Taranis, is that they’re unpredictable. Mercurial in ways columns of silver in barometers can’t measure. And as they’re bringers of destruction, so, too, are they bringers of life, but they never hint what a worshiper will earn.

Equal measures, then, to beseech the sky in hopes of renewal or destruction. But there is no god for lingering. No god for stumbling half-alive through borrowed time. Nor should there be.

A pat of butter sizzles as he flips Perun’s offering in the skillet, one-handed and trembling for too many reasons.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yule is a temporal phenomenon that happens roughly 15 times per calendar year, but this year, it merely lasts 15 times as long as it should.

Charlie Weasley's hands are slow and hot and rough and so good and so, so wrong. 

An invasive species sending quick tendrils over baked soil, promising the shade and cool of unfurling tender leaves. Spiraling vines that shield the earth and protect the roots while they utterly devour the canopy.

Harry's fists are lightning and thunder and driving rain in the hail of their own making.

"What did you see in her, anyway?"

"Family."

A shiver runs through the forest understory at the word. The forest is its own family; species in a delicate balance of eternal war.

"They taught you lockstep, not dance steps."

"I know."

Roots intertwine, sharing the taste of incoming rain and alarm of encroaching pests. Fibrous threads weave through the forest floor to knit the trees to the understory to the plants to the dirt to the nematodes to the scant groundwater to the bedrock. A soft, impenetrable bed of wary insight and vigilance.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>>>

Draco has been staring at the kitchen table for 3 years. Harry finishes spreading out a dozen wands of varying types and lengths.

"Why?"

"I'm sick of rescuing you."

The cedar responds in a mad fury of eager magic, a sentinel tree recognizing its kin, but it's antagonizing in its power.

The oak is well-balanced and smooths his magic nicely, but still so strong.

The willow is small, and flexible, and weak. But willows are unapologetic water-seekers who weather storms. An under-canopy tree that lightning rarely strikes. And maybe smaller and deep-rooted is better for now. 

"The willow."

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>>>

The man's fingers have been threading through his hair for glorious eons, and he wants to let his eyes drift shut, but then he'll miss the pictures.

"These are from Kos. The beaches there are just lovely."

His belly is full, and it would be so horribly easy to fall asleep with his head in this lap, but a Greek banker isn't a natural disaster, so he can't fall asleep here. That's one of the rules. Always come home. Always come home, and always protect yourself and always leave a note. An awful lot of "always" for a man whose mortar is crushed limestone mixed with "maybes".

"Ah, and this is Delphi. The wife and kids hated it there, but that was twenty years ago. It's probably better now."

"Hm. Grandkids?"

"Oh, yes. In a newer album."

"What's your wand?"

"Oak and merhair. Eleven inches."

Steady, drawn to the sea, and strong.

"And these pictures are from the Muggle sailboat we rented."

The sky is quiet, and the forest waits... testing. But the clouds merely drift by, place the note in his book, and welcome him to bed.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>>>

The men have been arguing for several centuries, and he was starting to think it wasn't even about him anymore.

"Look, I'm going to just go. You can-"

"No, wait," the taller one says, scratching his beard. "It's just- We know Harry."

His husband nods. "We're still game, just give us a minute."

They go back to whatever they were discussing, and Draco buries his fingers in the massive dog's fur. The truly legendary canine unapologetically takes up the rest of the sofa. Even if Draco ends up going home unfucked, the dog had made the trip worth it.

Things had been going swimmingly until he'd taken off his trousers and shirt, and one of them had said, _Uh... babe, come look at this_ , and then they'd both stared at his tattoo for 2 years before excusing themselves.

"Alright. Magic or rubbers?"

"Both."

The tall one lays in front of him, long fingers wrapped around both their slick cocks as his husband thrusts into Draco, hot breaths between his shoulder blades and against his forehead.

And _gods_ , they know what they’re doing. Their hands are everywhere. Snarled in his hair, gripping his nipples while he squirms, fingers shove in his mouth and he sucks them. The cock inside him hits home on every. fucking. thrust. But they exchange a worried glance and stop.

"Christ, Malfoy, never took you for a church mouse in the sack."

He clears his throat and resents the pause. "What?"

The other man huffs a laugh. "Yeah, mate. Merlin knows you've got a fuckin' mouth on ya. Use it for more than sucking."

"Oh, fuck you-"

The man inside him claps a hand over Draco's mouth with a dark chuckle and starts to _move_ , and the expletives on the tip of his tongue melt into long groans. His body echoes his voice as tension winds tight, lodges just behind his cock, and unspools with a muffled scream that trickles into soft growls against the calloused palm.

"Good boy."

"Mm."

Somewhere, in a forest, an imperceptible shift in the topsoil shunts an underground stream to the surface.

"Goddamn, I fucking love you."

"Fucking hell, I love you."

Draco groans around the length thrusting down his throat, oblivious. Fists in his hair pull him closer and someone matches him groan for groan as fingers dig into his hips and someone shouts.

They both pull out, and Draco's head drops, body stretched and spent at both ends. One of them huffs a laugh and wipes him down while the other throws a quilt over him. His throat is sore and his ass is sore and his lips are cracked and damned if it isn't perfect.

 _They_ are perfect. Together. A team. Murmured affections and droll domesticity drift through the trees as he dozes off between them, asleep in someone else's forest.  
_...birthday ever._  
_...parents' anniversary gift is too..._  
_...vet appointment Thursday..._  
_...take a full day to thaw..._

"Show me," Harry whispers, unsure.

And the forest's heart breaks, because it never, in all its eons, thought the sky needed to be _shown_. In its millennia of surviving on what the storms would bring and dreading how much they would take, the forest never once whispered back.  
_Like this._  
_Right here._  
And the plants of the undergrowth spread to collect the dew, glistening droplets growing on the points of leaves.  
_Yes, oh gods, yes._  
_Oh, FUCK, Harry!_  
And as water attracts water by its very nature, the storm feels the pull of the spring, and the dew, and pours itself onto the forest floor in great, heaving sobs.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>>>

The sky above him is alive and writhing. It is sentient, and it is watching him with tornado-green eyes, and it never occurred to the forest that the sky had ever been listening. Dry forests are quiet places. How can a place bereft of life make a sound?

And nor did it occur to the sky that the forest's voice had disappeared long before he’d thought to listen, so accustomed was it to the rumble of its own thunder and the screaming of its own gales.

But then the rains come. The rains come, and sound returns, and the sky wraps around the forest to hear the birdsong after the downpour. Morning storms murmur into bed on the breeze, and midnight showers, and always more than enough but never too much. The mist rolls in at sunset to hold the forest, slowly, slowly, on the rug in front of the fireplace. And the occasional mid-day stormfront rolls through, but the trees welcome the driving rain, and the thunderhead holds back its static charge.

And slowly, the crater in the earth that had been the taproot of the sentinel tree fills with water, and the forest has a _pool_. An entire _pool_ of its own. And the pool teems vibrant with splashing and croaking and the song of crickets at night, and the sky shines down clear and sparkling above it to bask in its own steady reflection.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|>>

It's been raining for years and mere moments when the Healer leaves.

"So that's it, then?" Harry closes the door softly and turns.

Draco inhales oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide and water and dust motes. He exhales pain and death and blood poisoning the world wouldn't cure, even if they could. Poison that comes from decades of being marked by Death, and slowly seeps into the wearer's very blood. Death Eaters were never meant to live.

"I guess so."

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<|

He's been waiting 70 years, and it's finally time. The note in Harry's book is a surrender flag, but it has to be planted before he can give up. It's the last time he uses the stairs under his own power. The last time he crosses the living room. The storm will come home and winds will carry him back to bed soon.

The plastic fern sits in a shaft of sunlight, a mockery of the forest understory. He sits on the floor, against the wall, and reads it the last time:

\---------------  
Congrats on  
your loss.  
DLM  
\---------------

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to the My Bloody Valentine fest mods! This was messed-up-fun!


End file.
